


See How Deep the Bullet Lies

by tfm



Category: Criminal Minds, Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tfm/pseuds/tfm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily Prentiss' undercover mission is blown by a biotic, shotgun wielding Council Spectre named Derek Morgan. Things go downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The problem with Spectres was that they attracted attention. Especially human Spectres. It didn’t help, of course, that Commander Shepard had perpetuated the idea of going around the galaxy head-butting everything that got in her way.

Not that they'd ever offered Emily Prentiss a position as a Spectre. In spite of what a lot of people thought, having a parent in politics wasn't a free-ride scenario. She worked for her promotions just like every other Alliance marine. At least she had before she’d been transferred into Spec Ops. In any case, she didn’t particularly want to be a Spectre anyway: being "above the law" wasn't exactly a status that she approved of.

Some things required a little more finesse.

Of course, in this case, finesse meant “three years deep cover on Omega,” which was about as appealing as taking a bullet in the kneecap. Out of all the mercenary hotspots in the universe, they sent her to the biggest scumhole in the Terminus Systems. At least on Illium you weren't likely to get jumped by Batarians just because they don't like they way you're eying them.

But no. Illium was one of the few places in the galaxy where Red Sand was actually legal - going undercover to stop a smuggling ring would have been next to useless.

So here she was.

Three years in, and she'd somehow managed to talk her way into being the right-hand woman of Ian Doyle, leader of Valhalla, as his merc group was known. Of course, she'd done more than just talking.

Valhalla weren't as bloodthirsty as the Blood Pack, or the Blue Suns, but they were bad enough. Smuggling drugs and weapons into human colonies was definitely one way to get Alliance Special Ops involved. As long as it didn't affect the Citadel, the old Council didn't seem to give a crap.

But things had changed, while she was undercover. The original Council was dead. Killed in the destruction of the Ascension during the Battle of the Citadel. And then a new Council had risen to power – a council with a human member.

As much as Emily might have disliked Shepard, she did have a way of getting things done. At least she had, before she’d been blown out of the sky. It just went to show that no matter how much of an icon someone was, they were just as mortal as everyone else.

Even though it had been almost two years since the Battle of the Citadel, the paperwork on Operation Valhalla would probably take ten years for them to sort through. The only way the Council would find out was if they were told.

And maybe they had been.

Emily first realized that something was wrong at the sound of gunfire. Doyle was off-world, dealing with some kind of supplier issue. Normally, she would have accompanied him, but today she didn't.

Emily wasn't really sure if she believed in fate, but it was one hell of a day for Doyle to be busy elsewhere.

She ran into the control room, bringing up the security feed of the warehouse's entrance.

One guy with a shotgun.

No kidding.

She frowned at the sight of a patch on his shoulder. _Shit_. Spectre. Maybe the Council were paying more attention than she'd realized. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. A really shitty coincidence.

She couldn't very well let the death of a Spectre sit on her conscience, even if he kind of was asking for it by just waltzing in with a freaking _shotgun_.

Emily brought up her omni-tool and activated her cloak. Whoever the hell this Spectre was, he'd better have a damn good reason for screwing up her mission.

...

Derek Morgan lowered his shotgun.

That ought to have gotten their attention.

Ian Doyle had been running drugs and weapons in and out of human colonies for years, and nobody had done jack about it. _This_ was what being a Spectre was about. Not everyone had to save the galaxy – there were a lot of problems that had been around long before the Reapers had been a thing, and they’d be there long after. Not that Morgan really believed in the whole Reaper thing. He’d read the reports, sure, but he wasn’t about to admit that there was an eternity old machine race looking to wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy, or whatever.

Usually, he had Garcia keeping an eye on security footage, and generally making sure that nobody got the drop on him, but there were some ship parts that she needed to pick up, and really, neither of them wanted to spend more time on Omega than was necessary.

Today, he was on his own. Just him, his shotgun and his biotics against a squad of mercs.

Piece of cake.

The thing about mercs was that for all the bravado they put on, they died pretty damn easily. For every shot that hit his shields, he’d already killed half a dozen of them. Today, it seemed like there were less of them – little red triangles disappearing on his radar without warning. Either there was some invisible crusader out there helping him take down these mercenaries, or his omni-tool had a pretty severe glitch.

He’d get Garcia to take a look at the thing when they were back on the ship.

There was a glint of a reflection on the air, and he fired his shotgun without even thinking. The reflection shimmered, before the cloak dissolved.

‘ _Fuck_ ,’ the woman spat, clutching the wound at her leg. It was bleeding pretty heavily, and he could probably take her out with another quick blast, but he didn’t. He did the one thing that a Spectre should never do.

He hesitated.

She was attractive, in a hard-edged kind of way. Dark, penetrating eyes, sharp nose. The kind of woman that would either kiss you or kill you.

Her gun was pointed at his head.

Morgan was about to charge when he realized that she was damping his biotics. It wouldn’t last long – she was losing strength quickly – but in the heat of battle, half a second was enough time for the tables to turn.

‘Don’t shoot,’ she said, and it had the tone of an order, rather than a request. ‘You’re a Spectre.’

‘And you’re a wanted mercenary,’ he countered. He recognized her face – she was Ian Doyle’s second-in-command. ‘Lauren Reynolds, right?’

‘Depends on who you talk to,’ she said with a laugh, letting down her damping field. It was a hell of a risk on her part, but Morgan was way too curious to hit her with his biotics just yet. ‘Based on the gung-ho “shoot first, ask questions later,” attitude, I’m gonna go ahead and guess Alliance?’

‘Yeah,’ he confirmed, not entirely sure why the hell he was telling her. It wasn’t exactly classified information, but in his experience, enemies stalling for time never ended very well.

 ‘Alright,’ she said, bringing up her omni-tool. A sudden burst of soft white noise indicated that she’d brought up an audio link. ‘Control, this is Illyria.’

Morgan frowned.  This wasn’t exactly following the general pattern of a takedown. The Lieutenants of Merc groups didn’t exactly surrender without a fight, and they didn’t usually stop to ask questions about his military background, either.

‘ _Illyria, this is control; what’s your situation? We’ve heard reports of someone trying to take down Valhalla – your mission was intel gathering only_.’

‘You know a human Spectre – dark eyes, dark skin, likes to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong?’ Morgan tensed. He suddenly got the feeling he’d screwed something up pretty badly.

‘ _Derek Morgan_ ,’ came the answer. ‘ _A good operative, if a little hot-headed._ ’

‘You’re telling me,’ she muttered. ‘He tried to take down Valhalla’s entire operation on his own. He’s with me now.’

‘ _Is the line secure?_ ’

‘No recording devices in the vicinity, no bad guys on the radar – I’d say we’re safe for now.’

There was a slight crackle on the other end of the line, and when the contact next spoke, it was in a voice that was all too familiar.

‘ _Morgan – This is Admiral Hackett, commanding officer of the Fifth Fleet._ ’ Morgan swore inwardly. Of all the groups he had to try and take down, it was the one with an Alliance infiltrator. And the fact that she just so happened to have Admiral _Hackett_ on speed-dial, well, that was something else altogether. ‘ _The woman you’re with is an undercover operative_.’

Morgan gave the woman – Illyria (or was that just a code name?) – an apologetic look. She shrugged, faltering slightly. He suddenly became hyperaware of the fact that they’d been standing around talking while she was bleeding out.

‘I don’t have any medi-gel,’ he said. He’d used the last of it taking down the rest of the mercs. ‘There might be a medical station nearby, though.’

‘This is nothing,’ she said, dismissively. Judging from her tone of voice, and the way she carried herself, she’d been caught in far worse situations. He could sympathize with that.

‘ _Is the target still alive_?’ Hackett queried, and Morgan had no idea how to answer that question.

‘Doyle wasn’t here when things went down,’ the woman answered. ‘If he already knows what’s happened, then he’s probably in the wind. I’ve been working this guy for three years, Admiral; I can’t just let him walk away.’

‘ _I won’t let that happen,_ ’ Hackett assured her. ‘ _Doyle won’t get another shipment of drugs_ or _weapons into Alliance space._ ’

So apparently somebody _had_ taken notice of what Doyle was doing. And he’d gone and screwed it up.

Not wanting to stay on the line too long, Hackett disconnected, with instructions to contact him again in twelve hours.

‘If he was on the run, do you know where he’d go?’ Morgan asked, and the woman hesitated. She knew, but she didn’t want to tell him.

‘Maybe,’ she admitted. ‘But I think we should get out of here before we talk about this any further.’ She glanced down at her leg – discreetly, but not so discreetly that he hadn’t noticed.

‘Do you have anything you need to get before we leave?’ Morgan asked. If she’d been undercover for three years, that was one hell of an operation.

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m good – if any of my things are missing, he’ll know that I was involved somehow.’

‘We’re going to go take him down,’ Morgan pointed out. ‘It won’t matter whether or not he knows.’

She bit her lip. ‘I know this guy. Ian Doyle is ruthless, determined…some say invincible. No matter how many times the other merc groups have tried to take him down, he just keeps coming back. I won’t trust that it’s over unless I put a bullet between his eyes myself.’

In the end, she didn’t grab her things, and Morgan didn’t push the matter. All she took was her weapons.

He didn’t even know her name.


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two

The Spectre – Morgan – offered to carry her to his ship, an offer to which she gave a cold look that quelled his heat fairly quickly. She could limp perfectly well without his assistance.

 But then again…

If she wanted to keep her cover, then she couldn’t well walk through Omega side by side with a Spectre. Valhalla might have been locked in an endless battle with the other merc groups, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t encourage information with the right price.

‘Do you have handcuffs?’ she asked him, and he frowned. ‘Look at it this way,’ Emily told him. ‘You’re arresting Doyle’s second-in-command so you can “interrogate” her. We get off this station, I still have my cover.’

He relaxed slightly, though Emily wasn’t entirely sure what he thought she’d been suggesting. _Yes, I know you just shot me in the thigh and we’re in the middle of a dangerous mercenary base, but do you think you could cuff me to the bed and ride me like a horse? Thanks._

In any case, he cuffed her hands loosely behind her back, before taking her weapons and omni-tool. As he led her to the docking bay, Emily concentrated on letting one foot go in front of the other – something that was increasingly difficult with each drop of blood that she lost.

Finally, though – _finally_ , they made it to his ship. It was a Corvette, with the name _Ziggy Stardust_ emblazoned across the side. Corvettes were usually used by the Alliance for survey mission; nowhere near as big as a Frigate, they still usually required a ten-person crew. There were ways to get around that, though – automated systems and VI, mostly. Intriguing.

VIs weren’t as frowned upon as AIs, but things could still go wrong if you didn’t know what you were doing. Maybe Morgan had some unforeseen tech skills that he’d yet to reveal.

As the door shut behind them, Emily felt her knees collapse underneath her. Her whole left leg had gone numb.

‘Just a sec,’ Morgan said, rushing to the starboard side of the ship. Through blurry vision, Emily could see the red of a medical station. ‘Just hold on.’ He cut away her pant-leg, and Emily had the briefest of glimpses of an ugly red wound before the gel gripped her leg.

The pain dropped away considerably, but it was still enough to make her grit her teeth. The medi-gel wasn’t a permanent fix, but it would be enough to hold until she saw a real doctor.

‘Sorry for shooting you,’ the Spectre said sheepishly, unlocking the handcuffs.

‘I’ve had worse,’ she told him again. Instead of ignoring the comment, he gave her a quizzical look.

‘Worse?’

‘Torfan,’ she said bitterly, which was enough. He nodded, understanding. Not a lot of soldiers had made it off Torfan alive. Still, they’d made out better than the Batarians. No thanks to Shepard.

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah. No-one ever really cared about the survivors. Just the person that sent everyone else to their deaths.’

There was a long pause.

‘You got a name?’

She’d wondered when he was going to ask.

‘Emily,’ she told him. It took him about two seconds to realize that that was all she was going to say on the matter. The thing about spying was that you tried not to give out your last name to everyone that wanted to know. Later, though, he could look up the records of everyone that made it off Torfan alive. It wouldn’t matter; according to Alliance Records, she’d never actually been on Torfan. Maybe there was a evidence of it in a basement somewhere, if only on paper. Technically, she shouldn’t have even told him that much, but she wasn’t really in the mood for protocol.

She started at the sound of the airlock opening. Morgan looked towards the aft of the ship. ‘Just my partner,’ he said, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced either. Emily looked around for something that she could use as a weapon, since Morgan still had hers.

‘Derek, why is there blood all over my ship? Did you piss off another merc guild?’

‘I’m fine, Penelope,’ he called back. Emily heard footsteps coming up behind her. She tried to turn, but the medi-gel seemed to have numbed her entire body. Adrenaline would get her moving again, but even that seemed to have disappeared for the moment.

‘Please don’t tell me you took a prisoner, hot stuff.’ Emily raised an eyebrow. “Hot stuff?”

‘Not exactly,’ Morgan said. ‘I uh…may have accidentally screwed up an Alliance undercover op.’

‘You shot an Alliance officer?’

‘Not on purpose,’ he said, weakly.

‘Oh, honey, I can’t let you go anywhere, can I?’ The woman then came into Emily’s line of sight, and all expectations were immediately shattered. Dressed in a floral blouse and bright pink bubble skirt, she seemed like the kind of person that would have been murdered the moment they set foot on Omega. ‘Are you okay, sweetie?’ Emily blinked. It had been a long time since anyone had called her “sweetie.”

Either she was hallucinating from blood-loss, or this was turning out to be the most ridiculous day of Emily Prentiss’ life.

‘Oh yeah,’ Emily said, giving a slight laugh. ‘Just peachy.’

The woman’s name was Penelope Garcia, and she was without a doubt one of the most atypical pilots that Emily had ever had the chance to meet. She was kind, and bubbly, and above all, a pacifist, which made it almost confusing to think that she was the wingman of a guy that decided that it was a good idea to infiltrate a merc guild with just a shotgun.

Penelope piloted them _away_ from Omega, which really, was the only direction that Emily cared about. Eventually, she’d need to contact her handler, or at least be given further instructions.

The instructions, when they came, were not exactly the ones that Emily had expected. ‘ _I’m assigning one of my frigates to help you out – Captain Hotchner of the SSV Gettysburg will give you further instructions_ ,’ Hackett explained over a secure channel. ‘ _I’ll send you the rendezvous coordinates in an encrypted email. Good luck._ ’

The coordinates were for somewhere still in the Sahrabarik system, which made sense – Frigates were a hell of a lot faster than Corvettes. It would be easier for Morgan and Garcia to dock their vessel inside the Gettysburg.

Still, even sub-light travel took time. Time that Emily took to make good use of the ship’s shower. In spite of the medi-gel still gripped to her wound, she tried not to put her weight on the leg. It would probably take at least a week to heal properly, even with the accelerated healing that the gel would afford her.

The hot water was like heaven on earth. Or heaven in space. Whatever. Spending three years on the filthiest space station in the galaxy was not exactly something that could keep you feeling fresh. Even though things had ended badly, she was glad to be out of there.

She washed her hair and brushed her teeth, and put on the clothes that Morgan had found her. Judging by the size and the cut, they were his clothes, but they were clean, and that was all she really cared about.

Afterwards, Emily found Morgan and Garcia in the mess, cooking what smelled like curry. Her mouth watered.

‘You look like you could do with a bit of feeding up,’ Garcia said, pushing a bowl across the table.

‘That’s because this shirt is three sizes too big for me,’ Emily said, tugging at the black cotton. There was a silver Systems Alliance logo on the front of it. But she still ate two servings, and was seriously considering a third before deciding against it.

‘Now,’ Garcia announced. ‘I make the most bitching Margaritas this side of the Terminus Systems. You interested?’

‘Probably not a good idea right now,’ Emily conceded, but the thought was incredibly tempting.

‘Tell me about Doyle,’ Morgan said abruptly, and Emily gave him a look.

‘Seriously?’ she asked. ‘You’re ready to go all commando on a guy you didn’t even look into?’

‘I looked into him,’ Morgan said. ‘But I don’t _know_ him. Not like you do.’

Part of her wanted to pull the “it’s classified” card, but as a Spectre, he technically had the right to know, even if it was a different chain of command.

So she told him. She kept her eyes cast downwards, and her fingers played with the hem of her shirt. It was hard enough to think about what she’d done, let alone tell someone about it.

‘The Alliance needed intel. They knew that they wouldn’t get it from someone who went in as a weapons dealer unless...’

‘Unless there was also romantic interest,’ Morgan concluded, and Emily could tell he wasn’t exactly impressed.

 As if she’d _wanted_ to seduce Ian Doyle. After this assignment, maybe she’d do something a little less stressful, like the N7 training course.

‘Look, maybe as a Spectre, you get to use tactics that the rest of us don’t, but that doesn’t mean you get to be judgmental about it. This was the best way to get intel. It worked. The end.’ Overcome with a sudden anger, Emily stood, ignoring the sudden rush of pain that shot up her leg. ‘I’m kind of tired. Do you have somewhere I can sleep?’

Penelope shot Morgan a dirty look before rising to put an arm around Emily’s shoulder. ‘Come on. I’ll find some clean sheets for you.’

Emily followed the other woman down the hallway, noting a number of closed doors leading to places unknown.

‘We’re not under Alliance command, per se, but they don’t like it when we modify the insides too much, so we have a lot of spare bedrooms,’ Garcia explained.

‘Putting in a VI isn’t considered modification?’

‘Well that’s mostly my own software,’ Garcia admitted. ‘But don’t tell them that.  Here we go.’

The room was small, and sparsely furnished – a single bed and desk welded to the back wall.

‘I’ve got washable paint,’ Penelope told her brightly. ‘If you want, we can jazz it up a bit.’

‘I’m sure I’ll survive,’ Emily said. She was grateful for the offer, but the journey to the rendezvous coordinates would take less than a day. She’d lived in much worse quarters for much, much longer. At least the company here was better than it was on Omega, but that wasn’t really saying much. Rooming with a pack of Varren would have been better company than Omega.

Though it felt like years since her head had last hit a pillow, sleep did not come quickly. The events of the day had left her body exhausted, but tense. If she was to be honest to herself, she hadn’t really had a good night’s sleep in over two years. For at least as long as she’d been sharing Ian Doyle’s bed, but before that, too. Every night, she’d slept with a Carnifex under her pillow, just in case one of Doyle’s more ambitious henchmen decided to murder her in her sleep.

Already, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to rest easy until Ian Doyle was six feet underground.

With any luck, it would be by her hand.

…

By some miracle, she slept.

It wasn’t a restful sleep, but it was as good as she was going to get this close to the end of her mission. She slipped Morgan’s sweatpants off to examine the wound. Beneath the translucent gel, it seemed a lot better than it had yesterday. It still wasn’t quite well enough for her to see combat, but she was certain that the _Gettysburg_ would have a doctor aboard.

A knock on the door distracted her from the wound. ‘Come in,’ she called out.

‘Hey,’ Morgan said, as he opened the door. ‘Oh, sorry, I—’

‘Don’t worry,’ Emily brushed away his concerns. The spy game had long since destroyed any shred of modesty she once had. It was the kind of field where you couldn’t stop to worry about being embarrassed.

‘Here.’ Morgan handed a pile of clothes that Emily quickly realized were the ones she’d boarded the ship with, albeit washed and mended. ‘Garcia pointed out that it’s probably a good idea to make sure we don’t blow your cover too quickly once aboard the _Gettysburg._ We don’t know what it’s gonna take to bring Doyle down.’

‘Meaning I might get to stay undercover,’ Emily concluded. ‘Lucky me.’ When this was all over, she was going to take an extended vacation on some beach planet, and she was damn well going to _enjoy_ it.

‘You know, you don’t have to keep doing this,’ he said, in a voice that sounded almost conversational, and yet he was trying to dig so much deeper. ‘You’ve got the experience and skill to be a Spectre. Hell, you could captain a damn spaceship if you wanted to.’

Emily stared at him, shaking her head. ‘All you’ve seen me do is get shot,’ she told him. ‘I don’t think it’s very representative of my abilities.’

‘Still,’ he shrugged. Emily wasn’t sure what point he was trying to make, but she suspected that he was just trying to make up for shooting her by laying it on a little thick.

‘For better or for worse, this is my life,’ she said bluntly. ‘I don’t if I _like_ it, but…The deception, keeping myself under control while I do what needs to be done…that’s what I’m good at. I know it, and the Alliance knows it. Everything else is just a little too public for my liking. Plus,’ she added. ‘Being a wanted woman doesn’t exactly give me any favors as far as future employability goes.’

‘I guess,’ he conceded, but Emily could tell that he hadn’t quite given up on the idea. If he was this overprotective about someone he’d just met, she wondered what it was like with the people that he actually _liked_.

‘ _Hot stuff, sweet cheeks, we’re coming up on the_ Gettysburg.’ Penelope’s voice crackled over the intercom.

‘I’ll let you finish getting dressed.’ Morgan left quickly. In any other situation, his awkwardness might have been amusing, but Emily’s mood was dark enough that she wasn’t really finding anything all that funny. Bitching about it wasn’t going to do anyone any favors, though, so she dressed quickly, and stilled herself as she made the short limp to the cockpit.

‘We’re docking in their cargo hold,’ Garcia explained, hands sitting lightly on the controls as she edged them forward. ‘Unless you want me to do a couple of Cuban eights first. They work better in an atmosphere, but really, why bother with space flight if you’re not pulling off ridiculously impractical maneuvers every now and then?’

‘Docking is fine,’ Emily said shortly, though the pilot’s enthusiasm lifted her mood somewhat.

The ship was small and sleek, for something with so much firepower. Based on the Galactic News Bulletins that she’d watched, Emily guessed that it was the same design as the ill-fated _SSV Normandy_ – though probably not quite as advanced.

‘Here.’ Morgan passed her the set of handcuffs, and she didn’t need any further explanation. The _Gettysburg_ might have been an Alliance vessel, but scuttlebutt traveled fast, regardless of loyalty.

She tightened the cuffs around her wrists easily – getting them on was easy, getting them off, not so much.

When the hold of the _Gettysburg_ clicked shut behind them, Morgan reassumed his Spectre persona, one hand pushing Emily gently towards the airlock, the other holding the chain between her cuffs. She stumbled slightly as they stepped off the ship, pain not fully numbed by the medi-gel.

The inner airlock opened, and Morgan gently nudged her through.

Captain Hotchner was tall, with dark hair brushed to the side, and deep, penetrating eyes. He looked vaguely familiar, but Emily wasn’t quite sure where he’d seen him before. What _did_ give her some pause was the fact that Hotchner referred to him by his Alliance rank when he greeted them. ‘Major Morgan,’ he nodded. ‘This is Lauren Reynolds?’

‘Yes sir,’ Morgan affirmed. ‘Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to locate Ian Doyle – but with her co-operation, we might be able to change that.’

‘Like hell,’ Emily spat, resisting the urge to elbow him in the ribs. It might have been cathartic, but he would have been obliged to reciprocate the violence, and she wasn’t in the mood for more pain. Instead, she tugged her arms away from his, in what might have appeared to be some fruitless attempt at escape.

‘We can discuss this further in our briefing room,’ Hotchner said evenly, apparently not willing to comment on the situation just yet. Several crew members looked on, some in disgust. Like notorious mercenaries weren’t even fit to set foot on an Alliance vessel.

_Yeah, well fuck you too_ , she thought to herself, as Captain Hotchner led them towards the elevator, Garcia bringing up the rear.

‘I apologize for the charade, Emily.’ Emily started. If he knew her name, then they must have met somewhere along the line – there was no way Hackett would have revealed her identity over a comm line. Apparently, he sensed her confusion. ‘I served aboard the _SSV Darwin_ ,’ he told her, almost apologetically. Emily steeled herself against the revelation. The _Darwin_ had been taken out by Batarian slavers in retribution for Torfan. The fact that her father had been commanding officer was just a coincidence. The Batarians just seemed to like killing humans. Emily had never been on the ship in an official capacity, but she’d visited at least once while on leave.

‘You were the XO,’ she said, frowning. Hotchner nodded.

‘I was promoted to Captain not long before—’ The elevator came to a stop, and whatever Hotchner had been about to say was replaced with stoic silence. He couldn’t exactly be seen getting friendly with a prisoner, after all.

Morgan gave her an inquisitive look as they continued forward, but Emily chose to ignore him.

There were three people sitting around the table in the briefing room – a blonde haired woman, an older man with dark, graying hair and a young, skinny guy. Not exactly what Emily had expected from their top-secret meeting.

Hotchner introduced them as Commander Jareau, Major Rossi, and Chief Medical Officer Reid. Emily recognized Major Rossi as another former Officer of the _Darwin._ She gave him a short nod. So much for staying covert. There was an awkward moment, where Emily attempted to shake hands, but realized that she was still cuffed.

Morgan was surprisingly quick on the uptake, and the cuffs were unlocked before she could even blink.

‘Admiral Hackett only briefed us on the basics,’ Major Rossi explained. ‘I’ve got two squads of marines chomping at the bit in crew quarters, but I don’t want to send them after Doyle until we get the full story.’

Morgan gave Emily a questioning look, to which she shrugged. He could go first if he wanted to. Still, she was only half listening as he explained the events that led him to single-handedly take down a mercenary guild. Only when he was finished did Emily fill in the gaps, and provide the coup de grâceto the whole tale:

‘He’ll have fallen back to his base on Amphitrite,’ she told them. ‘It’s in the Yggdrasil system. I can tell you the best way to get in undetected.’

‘Fitting,’ Doctor Reid commented. Morgan frowned.

‘What’s fitting?’

‘Both Yggdrasil and Valhalla are significant locations in Norse mythology,’ he explained. ‘Though numerous planets and systems in the galaxy are named after mythological and biblical concepts, so it’s likely just a coincidence.’

‘Chief Medical Officer?’ Morgan asked, his eyebrows raising slightly. Doctor Reid gave a slight shrug.

‘Amongst other things.’

‘I have blueprints of his Amphitrite base on my omni-tool,’ Emily continued, giving Morgan a quick glance. It seemed to take him a few moments to remember that he’d confiscated her omni-tool when he’d escorted her off Omega.

Once she’d fitted the device back onto her left arm, she forwarded the blueprints to Captain Hotchner and the Spectre, along with all of the files she’d compiled during her time undercover.

Morgan seemed intent on storming the building. Emily bit back the acerbic response she wanted to give. If storming the place was a viable method for taking out mercenary groups, then the Council would have sent Spectres to clear them out years ago. The fact of the matter was, the mercenary groups were so interwoven into galactic society, that taking them out through conventional warfare was pointless. Taking them down from the inside was the best way to do it.

Apparently, Morgan disagreed. ‘We kill Doyle, and it’s over,’ he said. ‘Like cutting the head off a snake. Without him, and without their main weapons supply, they’re not a threat anymore.’

The point was argued for almost two hours, until they reached a plan of attack that satisfied everyone present. Emily still had her concerns about Morgan – he was a Spectre; the rule of law didn’t apply to him. She wouldn’t put it past him to commandeer the whole operation, and do it his way anyway.

Based on the progression of the briefing, she had started to realize that she wouldn’t get to pull that trigger after all. Hotchner could just as easily have explained her presence in some official capacity. The fact that he had perpetuated Morgan’s ruse meant that he’d probably already heard from Hackett.

Sure enough, when the rest of the group moved to leave the Briefing Room, Hotchner asked her to stay back.

 ‘Is there a problem, Captain?’

‘Admiral Hackett passed along your orders.’ He handed her a datapad, and Emily knew then that she _definitely_ wasn’t going to be joining rest of the strike team on Amphitrite.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ she muttered, reading over the first few lines of the transfer order. Instead of raiding Doyle’s compound, like she _should_ have been doing, Hackett had pulled her off the mission and given a transfer order to Arcturus Station. She’d accepted the possibility that she’d be going undercover again, but not on a completely different mission. Whatever the hell it was, it must have been pretty damn important if she couldn’t even get a day’s worth of downtime.

 ‘So how exactly does this work? You’re just going to take a detour?’

‘Not quite,’ Hotch grimaced. ‘We’re rendezvousing with another Spectre who’ll be taking you in. As far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned, you’re still Lauren Reynolds, notorious weapons smuggler.’

‘Of course,’ she muttered. ‘So I guess I’ll have to move all my stuff into the brig?’ she asked drily. It might have been a lot less depressing if she actually _had_ any stuff to move into the brig. All of her worldly possessions were gathering dust in a storage locker on Illium. If things kept going this way, they she doubted she’d ever see any of it again.

‘Well, we’re not a prison ship, so I had a room put together in the port observation deck,’ he told her. ‘It’s not a penthouse, but it’s clean, and a little bigger than what you’ll get when you get to Arcturus Station.’

‘Sounds a damn sight more comfortable than Omega,’ Emily said, with a grim smile. She knew that it wasn’t Hotchner’s fault, but there was still some part of her that felt a little disdain towards the man.

‘For what it’s worth, you have my assurance that we won’t let Doyle get away.’

‘Forgive me if I don’t get much comfort from that statement, Captain,’ she said, drily. ‘I spent three years trying to take down Doyle, and I’d figured I’d actually be there for the main event.’

He nodded, understanding. ‘Of course.’ Reaffixing the cuffs to her wrists, he led her out of the briefing room and down to the Port Observation deck. The door had been refitted with a security lock – a fairly advanced one, but she could probably have disabled it, given time and the right equipment. There was something about a career in espionage that afforded her a wide range of practical skills.

‘I won’t have a chance to talk to you off the record after the Spectre arrives,’ Hotchner told her. ‘Good luck with your mission.’

‘Whatever it actually is,’ Emily added, somewhat acerbically. Hotchner didn’t disagree.

‘I’ll make sure you receive medical attention, and that your meals are the same as the rest of the crew.’

‘I appreciate it,’ she said, letting her voice take on a more sincere tone. She let the Captain escort her down to the observation deck, ignoring Morgan, who was hovering by its entrance. Any goodwill he might have accumulated had dissipated after the events of the briefing. Right now, all she wanted was to make the most of what little comfort she’d have before her transfer.

Her solitude didn’t last long; less than five minutes later, Chief Medical Officer Reid had arrived, complete with medical bag. It was an amusing sight, if somewhat antiquated.

‘Captain Hotchner asked me to give you a check-up,’ Reid told her, setting his bag by the bed.

‘I guess the Alliance wants me to be in good health before they send me into imminent danger again,’ she said, which elicited a small smile from Reid. It seemed ironic really, that in the end, it had been a fellow Alliance soldier who had injured her, rather than a member of Valhalla or another mercenary group. Next time, she knew she wouldn’t be so lucky.

‘You’ll need to…’ Doctor Reid gesticulated awkwardly, and it took Emily several seconds to realize he was asking her to take off her pants. Apparently, he wasn’t a gynecologist.

‘You seem a little young to have an M.D.,’ Emily said conversationally, as he examined her wound.

‘M.D. and two Ph.D.s., actually,’ Reid said, running an ultrasound wand over the medi-gel. The grip of the gel loosened, allowing him to pull it away.

‘No shit.’ Emily laughed, through gritted teeth. The loss of the gel also meant the loss of the numbing agent. It was by no means the worst pain she’d ever felt – more than anything, it was itchy – but it was still painful enough. ‘What in?’

‘Xenobiology and Astrophysics,’ he told her. ‘I developed an interest in galactic exploration,’ he added, somewhat unnecessarily.

‘Being Chief Medical Officer on a human vessel doesn’t exactly utilize your skill set,’ she commented.

‘Not entirely,’ he admitted, ‘But I wanted to spend some time familiarizing myself with the galactic stage before I transferred to an Alliance research project.’ Emily found herself curious regarding his motivations – Doctor Reid was clearly a highly intelligent man, and his reasons for remaining on an Alliance vessel didn’t quite ring true. Still, it was a medical examination, not an interrogation, so she didn’t pressure him.

‘What about you?’

‘Classified,’ she told him, but even then, her past before the Alliance wasn’t particularly interesting. She’d lived on Arcturus Station growing up, before her mother was moved around for her diplomatic missions. Any semblance of “settling down” hadn’t come until college, where she’d majored in Political Science. Technically, she also had a minor in Linguistics but then, Linguistics didn’t seem to matter as much when pretty much everyone in the galaxy had a translator sub-dermally implanted, but her mother had insisted that it was useful, and apparently Alliance Special Ops had agreed.

Emily had long since moved past regretting her decision to become a spy, but some days she still had that lingering feeling of doubt. The thought of settling down was one that she’d considered several times, but ultimately, that wasn’t the life that she’d ended up with.

Doctor Reid pronounced her leg as almost healed. With any luck, by the time her next assignment started, it would be all the way there, leaving her body a clean slate for any new injury that fate decided to inflict.

One day, the job would kill her. That wasn’t a metaphor, or some kind of dramatic exaggeration. It was a fact. It was what happened when you were a spy for the Alliance. They didn’t put it in the fine print, but it was an unspoken rule. The moment you signed your contract, you signed away your right to life.

The thought didn’t bother her as much as it once had. If there was anyone that she could make a joke to, she would have said that she didn’t have a life anyway, but even that privilege was forfeit. If she was sane, she would have told the Alliance to go screw themselves.

Sanity, along with everything else, was something she had given up a long time ago.


End file.
